Colt.45

Bet on it. They like multiple guys in this class, and now they've set themselves up to NOT have to reach. If one of those guys falls to them, they will pull the trigger. They are somehow staying relevant, while also keeping an eye out on the future of the franchise. This isnt an easy act to pull off.

Chris Ballard is no fool. Yet he is extremely transparent. As a fan, if you strip yourself of emotions and think logically, he is pretty easy to anticipate AND to agree with....because he makes extremely smart decisions.

Same ol Ballard. - Flipped Wentz to Washington for two 3s (one could become a 2nd but it's Washington, they'll die before they let that happen) - UPGRADED by signing Matt Ryan for a 3rd. - Same ol Ballard

Jim Irsay hired Bill Polian who ran things like this. Maybe what you want is a new owner because this mode of doing business is exactly what Jim wants. If you think Frank and Chris are getting fired if we go 5-12, i'll warn you now, be prepared to be thoroughly disappointed. We won't go 5-12 for starters, and even if we did they wouldn't get fired. Jim extended them (and rightly so IMHO) because he loves what he sees. He had Grigs and Pags running the show with a premium QB and he knows how BAD that was. These two have had no QB and have kept his club from becoming the Detroit Lions, you as a fan may not see how big a deal that is, the owner who has been around this game longer than many on this forum have been alive, he gets it. They'll draft a QB now and/or in 23.

Okay, for the sake of us all, i will leave it here. We'll see how the offseason plays out. Time is the arbiter of all *Last thing i'll say on this: Organizations look like they know where they're going when their QB is one of the best in the league. We got to go from Manning to Luck, and it appears some fans think we have lost our way now that the gravy train is turned OFF. NEWSFLASH - Most organizations in the league deal with this scenario, most don't seamlessly go from one HoF to a seriously good prospect.

So, all 32 teams have flaky owners? Yeah okay, i can get behind that. However if you're trying to isolate this to the Colts, i don't think that's even remotely in the same zip code as facts. ALL teams go through this every off season including the Super Bowl champs. Did you not follow the Colts when we traded Marshall Faulk??? Complacency does NOT equal poor coaching. New England got dropped by Buffalo, was that complacency stemming from bad coaching? You're selling this narrative that the Colts are poorly coached, poorly run, etc etc. Facts don't bear that narrative out. Some of us know other fan bases well. You're not speaking fact here. Not remotely close. Other teams are ascending? Yeah, surprise surprise, see what magic can happen when you've got an actual proper QB. Surprise! We're on the hunt for a QB, if you think we're sinking, so be it. We disagree and i think your points are sentimental, mine are backed with examples and facts

What did they say about the trades? All i've seen from Moore and Leonard is them using social media to try to get players here. And then Leonard said five QBs five years or whatever that statement was which is NOT disagreeing with what the management have said. Jim Irsay wants stability at the position, ditto Reich, ditto Ballard. Not sure where the misalignment is that you're referencing. Wentz was surprised. As was RYS. And? What's the big deal there? How many times do you see players from other teams in similar situations express surprise? Hint. Same as you see here. The few times players are not surprised, it's when they've agitated for it or the club has told them they're done. So again, where is this misalignment? They think there was complacency and they OWN it. Did you listen to Leonard on the McAfee show? Cmon, we cannot be selective here just to fit a narrative. The complacency was on the players! The coaches prepped them and tried to keep them focused, there's only so much you can do as a coach, for the most part it is on the player. Actually if anything, the team leaders should OWN this more, so Leonard, Buck......and yup, Wentz. They thought they'd arrived, this is the NFL, you cannot switch off. The coaches warned them. More money overcomes risk, true. Why pay more for player A with 7.5% risk if you can get a comparable player B with 7.7% risk for much cheaper? I don't know the formula Indy is using but i do know that free agency is loaded with deals that fans grossly misunderstand. Many deals in the league these days are one year PROVE IT deals when you look at the structure....similar to the deal we gave Wentz. again, go check out other fanbases in your free time. You'll come to appreciate that fans across ALL 32 teams are or can be a bit irrational.

Ye That's not how I understand players or agents perceive it. That's the media and fans. Uncertainty? That's an internal issue, among our fanbase. Go to other fanbases and you'll see same arguments. I live in KC, I actively follow the Chiefs, Brett Veach is taking a BEATING in their forums. That's a team that supposedly has everything together. Fans are wondering why the Chiefs cant sign defensive players, they're wondering whether players think Offense is all KC cares about. It's so bad that Tyrann Mathieu said things about the KC fanbase! Actually, the rumor in KC is that Chiefs players are not enthralled by this fan base. Now THAT is a problem lol. The Colts have no problems comparatively.

I disagree. The Colts have a rep of paying their own, that's not a terrible rep to have. They also have a rep for paying fair market value, again not a bad thing. Lastly, they have a rep for paying PREMIUM talent, again, i'm not sure how that's bad. Why should we overpay average talent? In what business school is that taught? Lastly, this notion that the Colts cannot attract free agents is as inane as the notion that people didnt want to come coach here. You realize this is Indianapolis right? If everything else holds equal, you're not going to compete with a FA if the rival team is in a bigger city. Forget it. Davante Adams didnt leave Green Bay because of money worries or broken trust, he let because everything else held equal and most young men would rather be in Las Vegas than Wisconsin. I don't agree with your premise at all. Also, it'd appear we're all forgetting the days when we won the FA offseason for years. You know, those days under Grigson. Mmmmmm those lovely days of bringing in Laron Landry and Gosder Cherilus, the ballers who won us multiple superb.....cmon Doug, lets not traffic in these kinds of thoughts, they're not with substance if you scratch beneath surface level. A player got poached by the Bears....so? Do you know whether they've promised him a bigger role than we would have? He was likely going to fill the Taylor Stallworth role here i.e. he was going to be a player of little consequence

How much were we under the cap by the time we paid Leonard and Moore who you've named? When the season ended, where did we rank in cap space? Are one year, prove it deals limited to the Colts? Look at the list of FAs moving this year, how many of those names also moved last year? This is the NFL, the highest level these guys can play football, if Jacksonville can attract talent, what makes you think the Colts cant? Please don't say Trevor Lawrence. Does big name = big talent? Does big name = scheme fit?

Yeah, i agree with you for the most part. We've kept ourselves out of draft positions by decision making though. We shouldn't apologize for not tanking. It's not as if we have not had chances to get top draft picks. When you have a mid round pick, you can always trade up. We have chosen to use our first round picks in other ways. I like Ridder, i like Strong, i like Thompson, i like Howell. I like quite a few guys in the class, they'll just need some seasoning but if one of them is thrust into starting (with a serious organization not one of these teams who have no understanding of the difference between eyeball and anus), i think they could surprise.

So a lot of the same issues from last season. The AFC got better....okay. And? Their method of getting better differs from ours. I'm not trying to crap on your concerns because they ARE valid but lets address the specifics you raised. No QB? Cool. It's the big one. Same concern we had last year BEFORE the final two weeks, we were carrying Carson long before that. Even that Arizona game that led the team to believe they had arrived, the game we won on ONE good Wentz play. One. Before that it was the defense carrying the team, Carson was not good. We knew we were moving from him before then. I have said on these pages that i think almost any FA out there can replicate what he gave us. Secondary depth? Have signings been shut off? Are cuts done? Draft? We lost Rock who played well last season but i remember the treatment Rock got for years. Heck even last season. In TC last season, folks were adamant that we should trade/cut Rock. That's not myth. With the new scheme and a better pass rush, the need for elite CB play should be reduced. We need a FS, but there's time. We'll be fine. WR depth? See above. We pretty much were Pittman and company last year. We have nowhere else to go but up. Last season was TERRIBLE from a WR perspective. OL issues? We lost Fisher who everyone didnt like anyway. We have Pryor back and he played well last year. We'll replace Fisher. Not worried. There's time.

We got Mo back. We have a 2nd year TE in Granson. We've got Farrod Green who they like. Oh and people forget how Jack Doyle got here. The only reason Jack didnt get crucified at first was because he was local. We'll be fine at TE. WR? The draft is probably deep right into the 6th round at the position. And there're still some ancillary pieces in FA. QB? Who did you think was going to come in and immediately elevate the whole club while being reasonably priced? CB? How many corners has he brought in already? And is there not a draft anymore? There're still cuts to be made. There's still a draft to be had. And heck, even if the Colts finish 3-14 next season, the only miracle here is that they lost Andrew Luck and still stayed relevant (@ least actively competing for the division and playoffs) in all that time, remember what happened the last couple times we lost franchise QBs? When Luck left, i felt they should have gone into the draft right away. They kicked the can down the road to satisfy the owner and a large section of the fanbase. And of course to maintain the steadiness of the locker room. Ballard did a good job with that. Now it's time to come to Jesus. It's time to do this the right way, and folks are kicking up sand and blood because we've not gone after every overpriced FA in the market. Is it because of that vaunted cap space? Tell me, after we finished with our extensions last season, what'd we rank in cap space? This story is NOT fully written yet. In the words of Aaron Rodgers. Relax. All of us need to do this.

Yeah, that's life in the NFL. When you have the QB, everything seems to be moving in the fast lane. We had 18 and 12 once. Our goal is to get back to the fast lane but it won't happen till we have an elite signal caller. Actually, i'd argue that we've been on the fast lane side in terms of maintaining some kind of consistency despite the churn at QB. Many sides would have folded. See NE with Cam Newton. I wish we had a LT. Star WR. Star TE. Star DE. I really do but QB is the key. We've maintained some kind of consistency despite everything.

There is no tanking though. We're not trying to give away our assets. I'm saying the thought that we should go all out for Jimmy G or Ryan is nuts. We have a team that could have made the playoffs with slightly better QB play, yes but we also have a team that could be a long term threat if we get in position to draft a rookie QB we like. Think KC and Mahomes, or Buffalo and Allen. This is not about now or the short term, this is about the long term. The difference between what you're saying and what i'm saying is that you dont seem to care the cost, you just want that best available vet QB even if it costs a 2nd in 22 and a 1st in 23. If they come at a low price then yeah, lets ride... but if you're mortgaging your future to get them then it's insane and that's what the front office is saying internally. Basically, they'd probably like to get a rookie QB AND bring in a one year stop gap. No one is saying anything about tanking, i am however saying that we need to reload and that may mean settling for a QB who is less than what you accept because his price is cheap. That price we got for Wentz? I am betting the Colts want to pay LESS than that for Ryan or Jimmy, and those teams will be over the gun and have to concede. THAT is why we are patient. So, what happens if they dont concede? Then they can give those players to other teams or be stuck with them but it is absolutely not in our interest to pay premium for those guys. We need those picks. We have our eye on a rookie and we need those picks. This year or next. You spoke of thinking like a GM. Rule # 1, if you're going to mortgage your future, you'd better do it on sure things because if Ryan busts and you've given up your high draft picks then you're going to be looking for a new job in short order as payment for your foolishness. That's the truth. Bitter but that's how it is.

Carson was very thoroughly average. Maybe even below it. He was Brissett level, actually Brissett had a higher DVOA in 2019 than Carson did in 2021. We, as fans, need to come to terms with the fact that 2022 is in all likelihood a reset year. It happens. Even New England went through it eventually. Now the options are: Kick the can down the road and try a vet (Cam Newton Wentz) OR Go get a rookie. No in-betweens. We've rolled the dice on option 1 over and over. We gambled last year with the vet, as we did the year before. It failed both times. We hoped we could roll the vet QB die again and again and get past the hump, the furthest we got was where potential HoF Rivers took us. I don't understand how some of us don't see what's going on. This road goes nowhere good. We're not LA or the Bucs who were really truly just a QB away. We dont have a monster receiving corp missing just the QB. We dont have a monster defense. We have a great RB and some pieces, we're not going to be elevated by average QB play....the QBs left in the market? You guessed it - average QBs. This year, we will pick up the scraps left once the market is done messing around, and if it's good enough to win in 2022 then so be it, if it isnt then the focus is largely on developing a rookie QB or getting one in 23. I hate to be blunt about it but i see fans are just not wrapping their minds around that fact. It's the right move. We got Rivers, we paid Brissett, we got Wentz. Look at our cap and we spent more than anyone else on the position last year and the year before. Enough already! There's no Derek Carr coming, or Rodgers or Wilson. What's left? The guys left are players whose teams are trying their best to upgrade. These are not winning QBs, these are guys who have serious issues. Baker? Matty Ice? Cmon folks. At what point do we learn the lesson? Talk to fans of those teams. If the Colts get Ryan at anything more than a deep discount, we'd be doubling down on grave digging i.e. our own grave. You'd do anything to get a Jimmy or a Ryan, and then what? Repeat 2021 all over again because you can bet good money that's what happens again, playoffs or not, it's either 2021 replay or 2020 at best. At some point you have to build i.e you have to draft. *I love JT but Leonard Fournette was good enough to help the Bucs to a title. I dont remember who LA started RB was in the SB. Was it Sony Michel? JT is icing on the cake. The best RBs in the league are arguably JT, Henry, and Chubb. Their teams are all plagued by subpar QB play, they're all 2nd or even 3rd tier contenders. All those fanbases want new QBs. JT is great but for us to be the team we all want to be, it isnt reliant on JT, that's the truth. **Instead of pining for a retread QB, pine for a draft QB. ***I remember Andre Johnson and Frank Gore coming here because they wanted to win the SB with Luck. Didnt work out. The players who are at the stage of their careers were money doesnt matter are definitely not the players we want to sign. Besides which player is coming to Indy because they want to win the SB with Matt Ryan? Stop it. ****Watch how this goes down, it'll work out better than the last few attempts because i think the focus is on drafting our own this time, whether in 22 or 23. We need patience. You highlighted patience, we need more of it. We've had pretty much a couple decades of solid QB play, lets relax. *****What should we be doing? Get a CHEAP QB, the more competent the better but cheap is the key classification. That QB is a bridge QB unless he turns into prime Peyton Manning. Draft a rookie this year and/or next, that rookie is your future. That's the place you cannot miss. Ballard has kicked that can down the road for a while. Folks think Irsay got mad at Ballard because of Wentz and all this and that which Wentz did or didnt do....no, the odds are higher that Irsay wants a real franchise QB. Even if you get Mat Ryan, the draft is the place to pay attention to. ******Next season is a lottery season. Might be great, might really stink. At some point we have to do this.

LOL The opinion of the Colts players matters but they're not in personnel decisions and rightly so. If we had someone like Peyton then yeah, maybe. There isnt a player with that kind of pull right now, their job is to play... They feel like they play for a winner, a team on the upward swing, they're not happy with a new QB every year, understandable but at the end of the day, free agency just started. We cannot be reading into player social media action, that's just tormenting ourselves for no reason.

Ah yes, Dan Dakich, famous therapist to the stars

But. but but buuuuuuuut the owner said they were all in! i'm going to take my lollipop with me and go support Peyton Manning when he buys the Broncos Really though, you've nailed it. This GM is actually pretty predictable. I can't knock the approach.

Yup.

To me, that decision was insane. However i give them a mulligan because there were a lot of emotions running extremely high after Luck said goodbye.

It'd certainly get us in the position to pick whichever QB we want from the 2023 class. I think a lot of folks have said we should be looking to pick a QB from that class right? Just need to be willing to swallow the bitter pill of L's

Remember Peyton's performance against Luck in that playoff game in Denver? i think it was in 2014. The Colts defense gave Peyton the deep throws all game and the dude just couldn't hit. It was painful to watch. That's exactly what it'd look like with Sam running a season. It'd get brutal.